Lifestyle

5 Ways to Fight Sleep Inertia, The Tired & Groggy Moments When Your Alarm Clock Just Buzzed

2019-09-19 , 10:00 am

Last Updated on 2020-12-21 , 7:03 pm

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

On good days, you might be able to get out of bed and take a selfie, post it on Instagram and #iwokeuplikethis before getting on with your day.

On most days, however, this might be more accurate: you’re groggy, tired and blur. Your breath smells bad and your eyes are crusty. You just want to stay in your bed for the rest of the day.

What you are experiencing is called sleep inertia.

Sleep Inertia

Sleep? Inertia? Huh? What’s that? Something related to Neopet?

Physics defines inertia as the reluctance of an object to change its state of motion due to its weight. Well, sleep inertia is not that different.

According to clinical psychologist, Dr Michael, sleep inertia is the overwhelming feeling of sleepiness that makes it almost impossible for you to get out of your bed.

So just like its physics definition, it’s your body’s reluctance to move out of your bed right after you wake up.

How it Occurs

Sleep inertia occurs when you wake up in the middle of your REM sleep cycle. REM sleep happens 90 minutes after you fall asleep.

Each REM cycle gets longer and longer, with the first cycle being 10 minutes and the last cycle lasting up to 4 hours.

In other words, you are in a very, very deep sleep. Naturally, when you wake up in the middle of your REM cycle, you would feel very groggy.

For many, sleep inertia typically lasts around 15 minutes, but for some, sleep inertia can last up to 4 hours. For people like my boss, it seems to last forever.

So, how do you fight sleep inertia?

Here are five tips for you.

1. A good rest helps keeps sleep inertia at bay

Sleep deprivation can make sleep inertia worse. Stick to a regular bed and wake time.

This way, you can regulate your body clock which helps your mind and body to sleep better, leaving you more refreshed after a good night sleep.

Skip the Netflix and the YouTube tonight, and you might start to feel the change tomorrow morning.

2. Drink a Glass of Water

Try to fight through the inertia and make grabbing a glass of water the first thing you do in the morning.

Due to the fact that you haven’t drunk any water all night long, you tend to be mildly dehydrated when you first wake up.

A glass of water can help you rehydrate and give your insides the kick that it needs to shake off the morning grogginess.

3. Go for a coffee run

It is no secret that coffee is an old school remedy for sleep inertia.

The caffeine in coffee can help reduce the duration of sleep inertia, leaving you more awake.

Caffeine helps boost our heart rate and blood pressure which in turn helps with concentration and focus.

4. Do not hit snooze!

Let’s face it. Anyone who says they have never pressed the snooze button before is guilty of lying. The snooze button allows us to sleep for a tiny bit more and everyone knows how precious 5 minutes is in the morning.

However, for every snooze button you hit, you are actually making your sleep inertia worse.

So, skip the snooze button tomorrow morning and you can thank yourself with a good cup of coffee later!

5. Meditating in the morning

Hear me out. Meditating can sound pretty boring, but it has proven that it can help with focus and cognition.

You don’t have to go all out and buy a mat just for meditating, start out small by sitting up (not lying down hor!) in bed for ten minutes. You’ll be surprised how much help it does, since you’re essentially just “wasting” your sleep inertia away by staying awake.

Now go and make every day your #iwokeuplikethis day!

Featured Image: Antonio Guillem / Shutterstock.com